Fatal Romance: A True Story of Obsession and Murder

by Lisa Pulitzer

  In the late nineteenth century, bankers and industrialists discovered the town. Scarsdale became the site of sprawling country homes and large estates of brick and stone, mansions complete with carriage houses and stables for the owners’ prized Thoroughbreds. But over time, wealthy city dwellers, looking for serenity and a safe place to raise their families, discovered the countrified community, with its winding roads and eighteenth century homes. Soon, sparkling white houses with manicured shrubs and tended gardens dotted the landscape. Sycamores, elms, and maples lined the narrow, winding streets, a village dotted with country clubs and equestrian centers. Stately stone walls reminiscent of the English countryside encircled the larger properties along two-lane Mamaroneck Road. Scarsdale had more residents in the upper income brackets than most other comparable communities in the country, making it the most desirable—and most expensive—suburb in New York State.

  Nancy’s new father had spent his childhood not far from the exclusive golf clubs that served the area’s wealthy patrons. In the 1950s, when Nancy and her family relocated to Dr. Richards’ hometown, it had a population of just over thirteen thousand. Families with young children were drawn to the area for its fine public schools and close proximity to Manhattan.

  Despite the idyllic setting of Nancy’s childhood, the split between her mother and biological father caused a wound that would not heal. She never lost the hope of seeing her birth father again. But over time, she grew to fancy the kind, soft-spoken man whom she now called “Dad.” A quiet, serious man who liked to be around kids, Dr. Richards immediately moved to adopt his fiancée’s children and make them his own.

  And while her relationship with Roderick Richards grew stronger with time, it was no secret that Nancy did not get on particularly well with her mother. She would later recount to friends Susan Richards’ mood swings, and how she grew up feeling anxious in their wake.

  For Nancy and her brother, change was everywhere. Susan chose to be married in an Episcopal Church because, as a divorcée, getting married in the Catholic Church was out of the question. Subsequently, the family moved to a new house, a sprawling Tudor on a private, residential street at 5 Brookline Drive. The enormous, three-storied white home with the dark wood trim was one of forty houses in an elite housing development called Sherbrooke Park. The quiet collection of intertwining streets with names such as Pinecrest and Locust was just off the main road, and not far from the commercial district where Dr. Richards’ office was located. The house spanned an entire corner of Brookline Drive, and was bedecked with flourishing dogwood trees, rhododendron plants, and neatly pruned azalea bushes. From the tall French windows that faced the front of the house, the children could see the impressive Georgian stone estate and the outsized white-shingled residence of their neighbors across the street. A screened-in porch in the rear of the house, decoratively hung with flowering plants, afforded the family views of the woodsy area and stream outside their door. Inside, her mother’s impressive personal library filled a large bookcase.

  While it was no secret in the neighborhood that Dr. Richards had adopted Nancy and her younger brother, the circumstances that led to the adoption were shrouded in mystery—at least to the public. When Nancy’s mother first began dating the pediatrician, it was big news on Garth Road, the busy commercial street in downtown Scarsdale where the doctor practiced. After taking their children to see the doctor at Eton Hall, the apartment building where Dr. Richards had his office, young mothers customarily pushed their baby strollers along the busy street and gossiped about the events and lives of those living in the small, exclusive neighborhood. One of their favorite topics was the new woman in Dr. Richards’ life. Word was circulating that the eligible bachelor had taken up with the mother of two young children, and before long, news that he had asked her to be his wife was spreading like wildfire.

  Neighbors of the new family believed that Nancy’s biological father had passed away, clearing the way for Dr. Richards to assume parental responsibility when he married the “widowed” Susan Rehm. It was a story that Nancy repeated during the course of her life—even as an adult.

  Nancy quickly grew to love her new father. To her, he was kind and gentle-hearted, and like her maternal grandparents, he only wanted the best for her. And besides, he was the only father that Nancy had ever really known. Dr. Richards was equally fond of his new daughter. He took a genuine interest in her pursuits, and delighted her with his repeated praise of her skill as a ballerina. She liked that he applauded her impromptu backyard performances and that he teasingly referred to her as the girl with “special dancing feet.” But in spite of her close relationship with Dr. Richards, Nancy continued to wonder about her biological father. She would later tell friends that her adoptive father had been a stabilizing force in her life. She added that he was often compliant when it came to her mother, allowing Susan Richards to rule the roost, and rarely challenging her on issues both large and small.

  In the years before her death, she tried to reestablish a relationship with her birth father. She confided to friends that on several occasions she had telephoned him, but had been hurt by his blasé attitude toward her. She was also disturbed by the sound of ice tinkling in a glass during their conversations, leading her to suspect that he may have had a drinking problem.

  Nevertheless, she told one confidante that she remained angry with her mother for insisting that her father relinquish custody of her and her brother, and furious that her father had actually agreed to it. She interpreted his decision to comply with Susan Rehm’s request as an outright rejection of her and John, and spent much of her life trying to make sense of it. But she never succeeded and remained both angry and sad about the circumstances of her early life until the day she died.

  To Nancy, her father had, plainly and simply, abandoned his children, and she and her brother were the victims of his decision. Only after Nancy’s death, more than four decades later, would her mother acknowledge her own culpability in making a decision that was so harmful to her children. Mrs. Richards eventually confessed to Nancy’s friends that her first husband was not a monster. His only real crime, she revealed, was that he had not been a good match for her. But there was more. Mrs. Richards would later confide that her decision to end her marriage to Nancy’s birth father had more to do with his inability to commit to her and their children. She spoke of sleepless nights sitting at home tending to Nancy and John Jr. while the children’s father was out on the town, sometimes not returning to their residence until the following morning.

  Whispers of her husband’s all-night outings began to circulate among members of her elite crowd, and after careful consideration, Mrs. Richards decided it best to rid herself of her husband and go it alone. It was a painful choice and one that she knew would most definitely impact her two young children. But she also knew that she could not live her life this way, and needed to maintain her self-respect.

  At the time, she honestly believed that removing her husband from her life and the lives of her children was the right thing to do. It was what young women of society did in those days. For many women in her clique, it was unheard of to keep the lines of communication open between an ex-husband and his children. In hindsight, Nancy’s mother remorsefully regretted her decision.

  When Nancy was nine years old, she learned that she was going to be a big sister for a second time. Her new brother, Roderick Clark Richards, Jr., the only son born to Susan and Roderick Richards, joined the family in 1961. Nancy’s mother was in her mid-thirties when her youngest son was born, and Roderick was several years older.

  Fair-haired and round of face, the adorable baby did not resemble either Nancy or her brother John, both of whom had angular features and thick, inky black hair. For Nancy, her thick tresses became a source of great anxiety as she struggled to fit in with and be accepted by the other children in her elementary and later, her junior high school classes. With pin-straight hair all the rage, she was often frustrated and self-conscious of her wild m
ane of curls. The young girl hated how she looked, and wanted to do anything she could to straighten her tresses. Even more frustrating were the short bobs that she was forced to wear, deemed necessary by her mother to keep her unwieldy locks looking manicured and neat.

  The following year, Nancy began the sixth grade at Scarsdale Junior High School. The large tan-brick school-house on busy Mamaroneck Road was set back from the street, and its floor-to-ceiling windows, decorated with drawings and cut-outs made by the students, looked out onto a field of rolling green grass.

  Several afternoons a week, Nancy attended ballet lessons at a local dance studio and for a while, she dreamed of becoming a ballerina. She spent hours choreographing her own dance routines, and liked to perform them to imaginary audiences in her basement and in the family’s grassy backyard. Other days, she headed straight for home where she and her brother took turns walking the family dog. Neighbors on the block were taken aback by the strange, high-pitched whooping sound that Nancy and other members of her family made when they wanted to call the family’s big German Shepherd back into the house.

  Yet while Nancy and her family lived a life that was typical of the 1950s, their neighbors sensed that beneath the façade of tranquility, there were problems in the Richards’ household. While Dr. Richards maintained a successful pediatric practice, was a regular at the country club, and was an accepted member of the highest social circles, people buzzed about how peculiar he was. To many, he seemed disconnected, and unusually “laid back,” and his unflappable demeanor seemed odd to those who imagined that a doctor had the weight of the world—or at least the weighty problems of his patients—on his mind.

  Nancy’s mother, meanwhile, was viewed as cold, distant and overly proper, even by Scarsdale standards. Her remoteness was keenly felt by Nancy, who later confided to friends that she never quite knew how her mother really felt about her. While she recalled spending countless hours on her mother’s lap, listening as storybook after storybook was read to her, her mother’s aloofness left her questioning how deeply she loved her. Nancy did not understand her mother’s lack of emotion and spontaneity, and as children tend to do, she interpreted these deficiencies as something that was lacking in her.

  An active member of the Junior League, she participated in countless fundraisers and other charitable events considered worthy by her upper crust crowd. She was known for her social etiquette and tasteful dress, which she carried over to her daughter, who she dressed in pricey, well-tailored clothes. But young Nancy was forever frustrated by the lack of color in her wardrobe, and resented that all of her outfits were either navy, gray or black. If the choice had been up to her, she would have preferred bolder, more fashionable ensembles, and she secretly dreamed of the day her mother would buy her a cherry red overcoat.

  Family friends believe that Nancy’s brothers also found it a challenge to relate to their mother. Both boys were viewed as loners, and her older brother John had earned a social reputation as being an undesirable playmate for other children in the community.

  The peculiarities of the family, as well as a need to escape the unbearable pain of having lost a parent, may have accounted for Nancy’s self-professed tendency to daydream for hours on end. As an adult, she would speak of childhood years spent fantasizing all sorts of imaginary scenarios and spinning endless tales of romance and love. In her stories, the hero did not walk away from his beloved, like her own father had done. Instead, he remained true to a fault, launching a fight so fierce to protect his loved one that nothing less than triumph was even considered.

  Eventually, her overactive imagination would lead her to a successful career as an author of historical romances. Her first writings would be as editor of The Cauldron, the literary magazine of the prominent East Coast boarding school she would attend in pastoral New England. At fourteen, Nancy learned she was to spend the next four years at the Kent School in northwestern Connecticut. Her paternal grandfather, John Rehm, was to foot the bill for her boarding school tuition, schoolbooks, and any other expenses his darling Nancy incurred.

  Founded just after the turn of the century, the distinguished educational institution was rooted in Episcopal history. Its founding father, Frederick H. Sil, was an Episcopal minister ordained by the Order of the Holy Cross. His mission as headmaster of what was then an all-boys’ institution was to teach simplicity of life, directness of purpose, and self-reliance. Enrollment was limited to students with exemplary academic qualifications as well as a track record as good citizens.

  Father Sil was a true anglophile—so much so that his decision to build the Kent School in the valley town of Kent, Connecticut, was based in large part on its striking resemblance to his beloved England. While searching for a site, Father Sil had been wandering the northwest section of Connecticut when he happened upon the tiny summer resort town. A two-hour train ride from New York’s Grand Central Terminal, it had become popular with well-heeled city dwellers anxious to escape the metropolis’ sultry summer temperatures. But the off-season conditions were what really captured Father Sil’s attention. The mist rolling off of craggy Mt. Algo conjured images of Great Britain. An even bigger selling point was that the town was situated on the banks of the Housatonic River, which would be a prime site for a crew team to train and compete.

  Some believe that the school’s Anglo-influence may have played a role in Nancy’s later interest in the writing of Regency romance novels. For instance, components of Father Sil’s own family crest were incorporated into the school’s insignia, and a crew team was immediately assembled and, to this day, continues to be the Kent School’s leading athletic activity. As headmaster of the Kent School, Father Sil retained much of the British culture, choosing to set aside the American class system in favor of the British “forms.” At Kent, students attending the ninth grade are referred to as “sixth classmen,” and so on. Boys were required to attend classes in a coat and tie, and when women came on the scene in 1959, the dress code consisted of school uniforms.

  Just off Macedonia Road, a dignified Civil War monument, reminiscent of the statues dotting English villages, sits in the center of town and the one-hundred-acre boys’ campus, with its Georgian-style buildings, lies directly in the path of the Appalachian Trail.

  When Nancy’s parents enrolled their daughter at Kent School, it had a reputation as a leading liberal arts institution, and registering there was said to help motivated students gain acceptance to Ivy League colleges and universities. It was ranked just below top-notch institutions such as Andover and Exeter. The curriculum was a general high school program of arts, sciences, and mathematics, but there was also another, more important element. Students were taught to be socially conscious through participation in a variety of volunteer and charitable activities.

  The grounds of the Kent School for Girls, known simply as G-S, was abloom with a carpet of red and purple wild-flowers when Nancy arrived for her first semester in the fall of 1965. And while she felt some sense of relief to be getting away from her mother’s moodiness, she was soon confronted by the realities of boarding school life. The decades-old institution wasn’t always easy for the teenager who later expressed feeling that she had been “dispatched” from the family upon her enrollment at the campus. Living away from home in a stark dormitory, and sharing a room with several other girls, was sometimes difficult, and eating meal after meal in a windowless, rectangular dining hall that could be drafty and dark in the dead of winter was also a trial.

  It was no secret that dining cafeteria-style at lengthy wooden tables, under a life-size oil painting of Father Sil, was hardly a substitute for the intimacy of family meals around the kitchen table. It wasn’t that the dining room was unpleasant. On the contrary, its lofty ceilings, expansive stone fireplace, and the dark wood walls, hung with colorful pennants representing various club teams, captured an atmosphere of Old World England. But in the cold, snowy months of December and January, the sun would go down behind the snow-capped Mt. Algo as early a
s four-thirty in the afternoon, casting eerie shadows on the campus from the barren tree limbs and heavily mullioned architecture. The early sunset would cause the air temperature to suddenly plummet, and the atmosphere in the valley could be both dismal and damp.

  Even more trying were the ten-minute bus rides from the Girls’ School down the steep hill to the main campus each morning. Since the classrooms were located at the boys’ campus on Macedonia Road, Nancy and the other girls had no choice but to travel the narrow, dizzying Skiff Mountain Road, with dramatic drops on both sides. On icy days, the journey could be most treacherous, with students closing their eyes and clutching the seat in front of them.

  In keeping with Father Sil’s vision of developing self-sufficiency, Nancy and her classmates were expected to perform various chores around the campus, such as clearing the dinner plates and cleaning the grounds. Students were also obligated to attend services at St. Joseph’s Chapel six days a week, and twice on Sundays. The impressive stone church was modeled in the British tradition and topped by an authentic bell tower. Instruction on how to use the tower was also part of the curriculum and a requirement of all students at the school.

  Weekends were primarily for studying, but there was also time set aside for socializing. Dances with the prestigious neighboring schools of Trinity Pawling, Canterbury, Westminster, and Symsbury were held on Friday and Saturday evenings, and second-run movies were shown at the campus theater. Nancy and her friends particularly enjoyed the jaunts into Manhattan where students were treated to a day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or other cultural institutions. On holidays, Nancy headed home for Scarsdale.

  While some might have chafed under the regimentation, Nancy enjoyed her time at the Kent School. She found the orderliness comforting, especially after the emotional chaos she had experienced at home. She thrived amidst her newfound independence and made a lot of friends.